Elizabeth Olsen and Josh Brolin in the Cabin Room Scene from Spike Lee’s Oldboy (2013)

Elizabeth Olsen plays Marie Sebastian in “Oldboy” (2013), Spike Lee’s remake of the celebrated Korean thriller. Josh Brolin stars as Joe Doucett, a man who is mysteriously imprisoned in a hotel room for twenty years and then released without explanation. Marie is a nurse and social worker who helps him as he searches for the people responsible. In this scene the two take shelter in a wood panelled room and become intimate, and Elizabeth appears nude. The scene is intercut with grainy surveillance camera shots of the room, revealing that their every move is being watched by the man behind Joe’s imprisonment, played by Sharlto Copley. That detail matters: the film’s final twist reveals that Marie’s place in Joe’s life was engineered from the start as part of the villain’s revenge, which recasts this moment in a deeply disturbing light. Like the original, the remake is built around that shocking reveal and around themes of guilt, memory and vengeance. Brolin and Olsen give committed performances in a dark, violent thriller that remains divisive among fans of the Korean film.

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